He was brought in for criminal mischief, he was a short, slim Hispanic… bald and not an inch over 5’5. He came from Honduras, we knew because he was a repeated offender and was usually coming in for nuisance things… criminal trespassing, shoplifting, unlawful carry of a weapon. He wasn’t your typical intimidating offender, he was just annoying, constantly playing a big hard criminal, the majority of the officers didn’t want to deal with him simply because he was annoying and not as much of a thug as he thought he was. You could picture this guy getting drunk and sizing up someone bigger than he whom he couldn’t fight but fighting him anyway just to prove he’s not a pussy.

Each time he came in to the jail it was the same thing, he refused to answer medical questions, he’d try to struggle out of a regular pat search, he’d spit at someone or try to swing, he’d get pepper sprayed, assisted to the ground and placed in a violent cell in a green smock… completely naked under that. Then the fun came, a good 6-8 hours of him kicking, banging and screaming at the top of his lungs every threat imaginable to any officer within eyesight or hearing range. Eventually he’d get tired and would allow us to book him in, then somewhere in the process he’d get frustrated again and would spit or curse at someone else, he’d get placed in an isolation cell for a good 15 days and then sent into general population to do his time. He never received visits, he never got money deposited to his commissary account, never purchased a calling card… there was pity looking at this guy. Some of the older offenders would sometimes humiliate him and he’d fight them… or at least try, not once did he win a fight and not once did anyone pay his bond to release him early.

His name was Harrison De los Santos… from the saints, and he didn’t speak a single English word other than “fuck you bitch” but his accent was so thick that it didn’t even sound offensive… too much emphasis on the “i” and the “u” in fuck he pronounced like “fo” it sounded more like
–fo’ kee yu beetch
-…ha

This time there was only three of us in booking, when they saw the deputy dragging him in, the sergeant on staff hesitated to override the front sally port so one of us could go assist the deputy in dragging him in.
-here comes this son of a bitch again
-I got it ‘sarge’ .. as I put on my gloves

He wasn’t wearing a shirt and one of his shoes was missing, the deputy had him cuffed behind his back, I placed my hand under his arm and assisted in dragging him inside. He was kicking, hissing and spitting. It wasn’t until the deputy threw him on the pat search room that I noticed his pupils as big as olives. He wasn’t foaming at the mouth but he might as well had been. The hospital had released him because there was no risk of death … he had just been high for days on synthetic marihuana. He was caught running around the streets downtown assaulting random strangers and vandalizing cars. There had been three calls within a 10 minute span of civilians driving down the main road leading downtown that had bricks or rocks thrown at their cars as they were driving down the road. One guy got one of his fingers almost bitten off when De los Santos attempted to take his cigarette away. There were more calls about choked cats and stolen bicycles that were later found a block or two away. The first one came from his mother because he punched a hole through their front window and then ran out of the house without a shirt or shoes. When police showed up at her house she handed them a t-shirt and pair of sneakers, the deputy took it out of pity for the woman. Her son wasn’t right in the head, not because he was born with a deficiency , he simply wasn’t alright. They had attempted to put his shoes on at the time of arrest but he was struggling so much that he ended up kicking one off and hitting one of the officers who ended up pepper spraying him only to find that pepper spray does nothing to an individual that has been high out of his mind for the past 72 hours.

I couldn’t get him to settle down, we initiated ICS (incident command system) which called all rovers available to the section to assist in restraining De los Santos.. goddam the saints. We stripped him and attempted to place the smock on him but it was almost useless. He slithered out of it within seconds of rolling on the ground… those damn things are held on with Velcro. The shift had just started… we had at least 7 more hours of this. We left him inside with the leg restraints on because it was too dangerous to remove them as much as he was kicking, “sarge” made the call to leave him like that.
The policy is that after 45 minutes he has to exercise the limbs, but after 45 minutes he wasn’t calm yet. He was still banging and screaming. The guy had no idea where he was. Eventually the extra staff cleared from the section because they got bored of the screaming and banging. I liked it when we had someone screaming like that, it kept the new book ins on edge and hardly anyone else gave trouble.De los Santos was not his usual annoying self this time… this time it was different, I thought it was a matter of time before he chewed his tongue off or pulled his penis off… I say it because I saw it once at the state prison. Well he didn’t but after 4 hours his feet were as big as the size of footballs… this is a 5’5 slim Hispanic… that’s pretty big feet. Of course, I’m the new guy who came from working at the big, bad state prison so I’m tasked to go in there and remove the feet restraints. There was shit and urine everywhere on the floor of the cell. There’s a hole in the middle of the floor where they can conduct this business but I doubt this guy realized what was flowing out of him. He was staring outside the cell window into nothingness. “Sarge” started talking to him

-De los Santos we’re about to go in there and remove the feet restraints alright, don’t try nothing or you will get sprayed!

..it’s policy that we must warn them before we deploy the chemical agents
I was thinking the entire time, I’m going to get my ass kicked and my face chewed off in a pool of piss and shit. I’m not the most religious person, simply because I’ve seen the back of God more than I have seen his merciful hand but I do pray, I pray to come home to my son and I pray to be able to make a decent man out of him. I started praying, against the humiliation of being rolled around in offender piss and shit, I prayed against the pain of picturing a chunk of my cheek being bitten off by this Honduran junkie. He didn’t move, sarge overrode the opening of the cell through the radio…

-central override violent cell 1
-…mother fuck it smells like shit

As I kneeled to remove the hand restraints. He didn’t flinch, his breathing was hard and he was sort of rocking from side to side. I removed the restraints slowly trying not to wake him from whatever trance he was on.
The slider closed and as soon as it shut he was on the window like a monkey screaming, hissing and banging. My eyes met his, I could feel the insanity looking right at me and it was though the devil himself was playing games with me, daring me to come closer.
It took 12 days for De los Santos to detox completely. He was never the same after that, he spilled food out of his mouth when he ate and he became a seizure precaution, we had him on 30 minute visuals and he was assigned a bottom bunk every time he came in.
Until someone killed him, he was coming out of the shower and another “96er” ( as we call the mentally unstable), punched him on the side of the head, he slipped and cracked his skull on the shower floor.

No, not the friend you fuck on your time off or the one you make time to fuck when you don’t have time but you’re starting to really like.

I mean the asshole who fucks you over and continues to act like your friend. In the army I learned the term “blue falcon ” … why? The same acronyms are shared with the two.

I often think I have shitty friends, but then I remember the ones I rarely see and I feel I have the best friends I could ask for. Then it makes sense, they’re great friends because most of the time they leave me the fuck alone and we all live our lifes either great or not and then we meet once a year and praise each other’s mediocre accomplishments… or not.

It doesn’t have to be the gal that slept with your fiancé, or the guy who told your wife you were cheating … it’s not even the guy at work that made a sexual harassment complain behind your back about a porn picture you showed them on your work computer while they shared a blueberry muffin with you and snickered behind their hand to hide their blueberry smudged two front teeth… no, it’s not any of them. Those are a tad bit more tolerable than the asshole who calls you on your day off to tell you that they heard from your supervisor at the insurance company that you’re going on probation for a hospital bill you didn’t submit on a 5 month old claim.

The asshole that knows you haven’t had decent sleep in the past year because of your divorce and your father was diagnosed with leukemia, you lost your car and now use “lyft ” for almost everything and it’s the first full weekend you get in at least 4 months because you’re finally caught up . So now you’re standing in front of the mirror with your phone on speaker and half the side of your hair curled while your 6 year old is sitting on the bed begging you to hurry up so you can get him to the birthday party of the snobby kid in his class who happens to be his best friend. Whose mother you met at the fall festival and is the definition of perfect with her perfect body, face and hands and has a rich husband and has never worked a day in her life. She’s not the stuck up snob like that you can blow off and have an excuse not to talk to, she’s actually really fucking nice so you have to take your son to the party and wrap nicely the remote control car you paid too much at the mall for but you had to get because they gave your son an equally expensive toy at the gift exchange at school.

…the damn toy you bought that was very much your monthly bed payment but that you have to push back a few days so your kid can enjoy perhaps a normal life.

Fucking asshole, it seems like a gesture to warn you of the shit day you’ll have coming back to work but then again … why ruin my last day off with these news. I cut the call when my boy fell off the bed ..of course he busted his lip and chipped his tooth, and as my butt reflects on the mirror ..aaah there it is, my white pants completely ruined with mother’s nature that I may still be a woman. I felt the wetness earlier but I was thinking about the way my new desk neighbors penis was traced by his basketball shorts at the work gym when he was doing squats. Shit… don’t cry, don’t cry…

I thought about the time I was raped by three of my closest friends… the way they took turns satisfying themselves and the way I squeezed my teeth as I tried to fight back and eventually got too tired.

It’s like your heart is being squeezed with every breath you take because maybe you’re not meant to be breathing anymore.

I thought about this as I drove with my son to the park, I was crying and couldn’t stop and he sat quietly in the back watching a video on his tablet. I used to think I would never be one of those parents that would use a tablet as a substitute babysitter… everything changes once you actually have them with you. His handgun sat in its case under the driver’s seat. We hit a red light and I almost became afraid to carry on with it. I thought about the time I was raped by three of my closest friends… the way they took turns satisfying themselves and the way I squeezed my teeth as I tried to fight back and eventually got too tired. I thought about the time his father told me he was leaving me for another woman because I no longer satisfied him as a man. I thought about the look of disappointment on my mother when I returned home that day telling her she was right all along and he wasn’t a good man. I thought about my ex boyfriend and how I walked in on him making love to my best friend on my bed. And finally… for some reason I thought about he last guy that tried to date me. He didn’t seem like a bad person, he was nice to me… he called me everyday and was always there when I had car trouble or plumbing issues. He never mentioned a girlfriend, not even after three months and we had sex for he first time. I found out through a common friend… he was engaged. His friends didn’t tell me, it was an old college friend, she was her co-teacher. I found out one afternoon when I stopped by to drop off an invitation for my son’s 5th birthday party … she had a picture of them on her phone as a screen saver. Her phone was ringing while she went to the restroom and I picked it up to hand it to her while my friend graded papers behind her desk…and there he was. I gave the invitation to my friend and left, I didn’t even stay to find out if he was he one calling her. I sent him a text message that night letting him know I knew I had just been a hoe on the side.

My self-esteem was at its lowest now, it was my ex boyfriend’s gun… maybe he left it behind for a reason. I had attempted suicide in the past at least three times. All three times someone called or showed up at my house at the moment when I was about to drink a cup of car coolant, mixed with my entire bottle of sleep medication. I never really bothered to find out if it would actually killed me. One day you wake up and you feel it; or in the middle of the day you just can’t take it anymore. Sometimes it’s at night when you’ve done all your laundry, the house is spotless, the dog has been fed, your son is spending the weekend at his grandparent’s …and then,the bottomless pit of loneliness is overwhelming. You know some people may be sad in the beginning, but eventually they will be better off without you. There is the never-ending fear of the unknown of course; but this hurt today, and all the days prior, is unbearable and even what lays ahead, as doubtful as it may be, seems more welcoming than the hurt that is happening right now. I never wanted anyone to feel sorry for me, there were days when I wished with all my heart to stop time and be able to go back a few years back and be more of myself… I wanted to not disappoint and do things that would make me happy, skip around the people who had hurt me and feel like I have had a fulfilling life.

I keep driving towards the park with him in the background… I feel sad because I know this will somehow mess him up… I’m hoping it won’t, I hope that it will somehow turn him into an outstanding human being. Since the day he was born, I begged that he is stronger than I have ever been and that he makes a good life for himself. I want him to be better than me, often I have told myself that I feel so much unhappiness because I have given him all the one that was meant for me and he’ll never be sad a day in his life. I love my boy with all my heart, he’s the only good thing about me, is what I tell anyone that gets to know me beyond the joyful person I pretend to be. I exercise every day at the police department after I’m done filing papers for the deputies…. but I’m exhausted. They never explain the tired feeling when you’re depressed comes from existing and not so much from daily tasks you complete. Living is what hurts you, it’s what drains you.

I play in my head over and over again, the rifle marksmanship we went over in basic training while I was still in the ARMY… aim, breath control… trigger squeeze. I don’t have a rifle… it’s a handgun and he thought me how to use it a few times. I have a full magazine but I know only one bullet is enough… I was afraid to fail when I made the decision that this is how I would go; so I decided to leave all the bullets in the magazine and load the gun. I’m tired and afraid but I’m in control this time.

We’ve arrived at the park, I give him my cell-phone and tell to go play in the slide. Don’t take the tablet because the battery is almost out. In reality I want him to see he’s the picture on my screen saver. I want him to see it because I want him to remember when he thinks back to this day, that his face was the only face I cared to see and that although I never loved myself enough; I have loved him more than anyone can love another person. I love him to the point that it hurts me and that I know I’m not good enough to be his mother… I live afraid to turn him into me. There are other kids at the park… that’s good, it’s Sunday. I park under the acorn tree that stands like a loving grandmother, heavy with thick leaves and a firm trunk. I don’t even want the radio on, I let the engine run; next to me a handsome older man smiles as he walks by my window, I look up at him. I’m sure he can’t see my teary eyes from outside the car window… the sun is too bright. He’s wearing a gray shirt, sunglasses and a blue base-ball cap. His grayed trimmed beard, like a George Clooney, hugs his chin as he passes by me with a little boy a little older than my son. I almost regret what I’m wearing today… I took my time picking the right shade of pink blouse and white shorts and now I almost feel ridiculous. The short sleeve shows the heart-shaped birth mark on my left arm, not ironic at all I think. The white shorts are gonna be stained with blood though. I’m waiting until the real life George Clooney is out of sight to go under the car seat and pull the gun out. I don’t know the brand or what it is… a 40?… my son just left the phone in a bench and climbed the stairs to the highest slide. I want to stop him but I don’t want to save myself anymore. I’m done, I’m tired, I don’t deserve him or his grandparents …you piece of shit, you selfish piece of shit . He’s sliding face first down the slide… the magazine is already in, I don’t know why but I put the gun to my stomach, I see him slide all the way down and I’m trying not blink as I hold my breath in. Good… he put his hands in front of his face and didn’t land face first. He gets up with that million-and-one dollar smile and the single dimple on his right cheek as he looks in my direction and then gets in line one more time. I’m having problems pulling on that thing that slides on top… slide… there it is. click-BOOM!

It was visitation day at the prison… from the outside I kept watch of the inmates as they were called out to get ready for their visits. Twenty minutes of agonizing hurt as they spoke to their loved ones through a glass on a shitty phone that reeked of saliva and snot. No one ever cleaned those phones, or the glass or the floor of the visitation hallway. the lights were also always dim, making the almost white paint and dirty floors seem more depressing.

I heard the slider open as the last guy who got a visit that day went out. I don’t even know what the fight was about. Jerry Springer was on TV, I sat there trying not to see the time on the computer screen. I heard yelling, something like slapping a slice of raw chicken on a plate and more screaming. I was cutting out pictures on a bible, trying to create a book scenery with a piece of a staple I found on the ground while the main corridor. I heard the guards come in to get the guys that were fighting. The picket officer was standing by the glass, a piece of cookie in his right hand, some crumbs on his shirt. They took the guys out, I didn’t bother hiding the cut out bible… the staple I just placed it between my two fingers and continued to lay on my bunk.
– who started it?
The fat corporal with the little boy face and fuck-boy hair cut. You knew he made rank because he knew enough people and came from a family of money, but the guy was a moron. He didn’t care about the fight any more than the rest of us in the tank. We were all just waiting to be sent to the releasing facility from here, some of us had a few months left to go, others were on their last two years.
-The black guy started it boss man
(Stupid Son Of a Bitch, that’s what BOSS stands for…backwards)
The black kid was the youngest one in the tank, he was given 5 years for stealing cars and managed to get a sentence reduction. He had only been here a few weeks and had completed one year of his sentence, goddamnit he was a pain in the ass. He rarely showered and each time he jerked off he did it in the toilet and not the shower… we caught his pubes on the seat of the toilet and sink every time. He wasn’t the only dark-haired one in the tank, but when you spend so much time around all the men, you recognize that black dudes have thick pubes, mexicans are curly also but they’re thinner… and well white guys’ are usually blonde or white because they’re old.
He had poor hygiene and we didn’t want him in the tank, I think the fat Asian just took the fall for all of us when he snatched his soup from his foot locker as he was playing cards with the old man.
The old man told the corporal everything, he knew because he had been sitting with the kid playing spades when he saw him get up and push the Asian. The Asian was sentenced two years for DWI’s … the old man was a murderer…. he had served 18 years for running over his granddaughter’s husband because he saw her slap her across the a face on Easter. He wasn’t a nice looking old man, he had done his time before he killed that poor fucker, his skin hung on him like old leather and it was gray from shoulder to shoulder with tattoos. The old man could make good Hooch, we respected him but he didn’t run the tank, that was the Mexican Mafia guy. He was here because he beat his kids so bad he broke one of their arms and left the other one with older fractures. Somehow his wife took the blame and she was sentenced to twenty years in the state jail. We didn’t fuck with that guy, we all just wanted out. He didn’t mess too much with us, he controlled the TV and the phones, he never stood in line to use the phone and no one else changed the channels without checking with him. Same thing with the toilet paper, we were given each two rolls a week but he never ran out.
– Trustee! come pick his stuff up and put it in the barber shop
I shoved the staple into my fingernail… it hurt like hell. The guard handed me a red net bag where I placed all his commissary stuff, I went under his mattress and grabbed all his correspondence, I found a kill shot, I thought about keeping it but something got tight in my stomach and my heart sank a little. It was a young girl, she wasn’t wearing a thong, she just rolled part of her underwear into her crack and some of her pussy showed. You could see an Linkin’ Park poster in the background of an almost messy room. I put the kill shot between the rest of his mail and did my best not to wrinkle the letters, I don’t know why but I felt bad for the kid. I placed the red bag in the barber shop as a guard attached a tag on it with the kid’s name on it… he’d be spending the rest of the day in “seg”, the night shift would take him out and bring him back. The fat corporal locked the door to the barber shop and left the section. I went back to the tank,
– and then there were 12
said the old man as he sat down to pick the cards up. I wasn’t sure what he meant with that… the old man said a lot of things that made no sense sometimes… he was also a little schizo.
The kid had been raised in a foster home…. not the kind with a family that could either be good or really fucked up and did it for the money. He lived in a youth home where there are a bunch of kids that no family wants to take in….ever. He mentioned once tha t he knew he was taken from his mom when he was about three years old and lived in a few foster homes until around 10 years old. He tried to join the army at 18 but wasn’t able to make it past reception due to his low weight and other health problems. He was pretty small for his age, he also had a sixth toe growing right between his right pinky toe and the other toe… he also had a limp. The kid was fucked up… he drooled a little when he talked, the saliva would come off the corners of his lips and he made a snorting sound after every few words. The girl in the picture was really ugly… I wonder if she had some retardation or was also a foster kid. No one kept kill shots of their ugly girlfriends or wifes, that’s why they were kill shots… just for cumming, not for reminiscing.
The kid came back that night sometime around two in the morning… he smelled like piss. He was hugging his red bag, he didn’t even bother checking his commissary, he looked through the papers… found the kill shot and went to one of the sinks. I faced the other way, I felt so much pity. This kid didn’t have a damn thing…